


Fallout Girl

by Bethania_Nathaniel



Category: Jane Eyre - All Media Types, Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Romance Novel, F/M, Gen, Gun Violence, Guns, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, apparently John Reed is not a recognisable character on AO3 hopefully I got his name right, i have no idea lets just go with that, i know the archive warnings are misleading but i ticked them in hope of where the story is headed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 23:44:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4325424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bethania_Nathaniel/pseuds/Bethania_Nathaniel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only Jane Eyre can save herself in a world full of radioactive waste and totalitarian twelve year-olds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallout Girl

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.  
The nuclear apocalypse had ruled that one out pretty well.  
Jane tried to focus on her book of extinct birds as acid rain hissed against the glass windowpanes outside, but she knew that her cousin John had the latest X-Galactor 79 and might burst in gleefully any moment. Her Aunt Reed had never contradicted anyone who said she was a radioactive mutation, so she knew it was only a matter of time before a murder attempt happened. 

Voices echoed in the corridor. Footsteps. Stomping. Growing louder.  
She tightened her hold on the curtains.   
Gulped.   
Waited...  
The steps moved away.  
Her heart let go. 

A haggard breath escaped as she relaxed back into the seat, panting with relief. It was probably time to return the book anyway. It wasn’t hers – nothing in this ridiculous reconstructed Victorian mansion was – and the security droids in her nursery had increased the amount of randomised security checks on her in the last few months. That was why she didn’t have any weapons, whilst her cousins brandished the latest rocket projectile phones every hour. If she did have one, Aunt Reed would have been disposed of years ago.   
Jane pulled open the curtains and slid off the window seat. She turned back to pick up the book.  
“Aha.”  
The voice was ironically reedy. Smug.   
The whirr of nuclear pistons echoed straight out of Jane’s nightmares.

“Sisters! I’ve found Cousin Jane! She’s – what are you up to, mutation?” he asked. She turned to look at him slowly, deliberately not looking at the hunk of glowing metal rigged on his twelve year-old shoulder.   
“I was reading,” Jane replied. She could have lied, but in all honesty there was nothing else to do inside the house. Apart from carting around ostentatious weaponry and boasting, of course.  
“Reading? What?”   
She pulled out the book.   
John squinted at it for a second. “Liar. Mutations can’t read.” He pressed a button, and Jane dropped to the floor as he burnt a hole in the centre of the book, surgical and precise.   
She’d been standing there a second ago. Holding the book against her chest. The centre of her chest.   
Her heart hammered through to her teeth, rattling and shaking.   
“Get up!” Jane heard a thud, and red seared across her sealed eyelids as the smoking remains of the book collapsed around her head. “Get up! That’s an order!”  
She lifted her head. John’s metallic boots swam in front of her. The back of her head felt sticky.  
Her eyes grazed upwards, and John’s woozy smile watered down to her.  
“Fine!” Jane pushed herself up. “But only to tell you this.” She stood up, vengeful power running through her gleefully. This moment had been haunting her daydreams for years.  
“You push me around all day, but you’re stupid! You can’t even read! You are like Nero, like Hitler, like every other deformed dictator in the history of the pre-apocalypse! You are the mutation! You-”   
She was cut off by John abandoning his gun and swinging his open palm into her face. The sound of a blade hissed through the room.   
John’s face was bright purple; like the smog in the early morning.   
Jane touched her cheek. It burnt. 

She didn’t notice any other sounds until the door swung open and security droids barrelled inside.  
“Master Reed, are you well?” “Miss Eyre, you have violated Code No. 32 in the Youth Resettlement Act-” “-and did you hear what she called me!?” “-for touching private property, attacking your superior-”  
“Oh, what is it now?” Aunt Reed appeared at the door. Her pack of android pugs sniffed around her slippers, growling.   
“Miss Eyre has violated-”  
“Oh my poor baby!” She rushed to a very sulky John in the middle of the room. “What did she do to you, sweetie-pie?”  
“She,” he sniffled, “she attacked me.”  
Jane could still feel the blood trickling down her neck.   
Aunt Reed pulled John’s unblemished face into her chest and held him tight. “Take her away,” she spat. “Take her to the Red Room!”  
The security droids spun on Jane, reaching their extended claws towards her.   
She couldn’t help it.   
She screamed.

**Author's Note:**

> Editorial/Writer Notes:  
> 1\. I literally just pulled this out of my ass in the name of writing practice. It's not an excuse for bad writing, but an explanation I guess.  
> 2\. I have no idea how to paragraph. If someone could help me I'd really appreciate it.  
> 3\. I feel that Fallout Girl!Jane Eyre grows into a pacifist, but I'd really like to see her become badass post-Rochester and take on an active role in fights. Thoughts?   
> 4\. My version of Jane is going to be more naiive than ever with Rochester (sorry, I cringe during those parts of the novel too), because there's even less opportunities to interact with available men in your area after a nuclear apocalypse.  
> 5\. School days? Probably in a bunker somewhere. One where the rich people nicked off with all the sustainable food a while ago and all that is left is mutated cow.   
> 6\. What caused this nuclear apocalypse? It would be common knowledge for Jane and everyone else. Maybe that's Rochester's secret. Nothing's better at stopping a wedding than a mad wife and, oh, just having casually blown up the world ever so sorry dear now continue saying how you want to be legally bound to me forever.   
> 7\. The Red Room??   
> 8\. I'm probably supposed to write all these things in my private notes. Well HA I just made you read all of these ha ha ha you'll never get these two minutes of your life back.


End file.
